In today's wireless communication networks there may be several ways that contact information is sent between two users.
One straightforward way of sending the contact information of the sending party to the receiving party would be to simply call the receiving party. The receiving party would then see the telephone number of the sender on its display and add the telephone number to its contact list. However, the receiving party would need to add the name and perhaps some other contact details to the contact list in order to identify the sending party next time the sending party calls.
Similarly, when receiving text or multimedia messages from sending parties which are not known, the adding of the persons name in order add him/her to the contact list of the receiving party may have to be performed manually.
One more convenient way of transmitting contact data to a receiving party would be sending so called vCards or verityCards. Vcards are a form of electronic business cards including, among other things, the telephone number, e-mail address, home address, home page address, alternative telephone numbers, etc., of the sender. Originally, vCards have been used in e-mail communication, but their use has expanded to mobile terminals as well. Having received a vCard, a user of a mobile terminal may add the person in the vCard message to its contact list.
The sending party may also send vCards containing contact information for users other than the sending party itself by choosing one or more users from the sender's contact list and sending the contact to a receiving party.
Sending a vCard may presuppose however, that the contact details for the person in question are available in the contact list of the sending party.
Thus the above methods of transmitting contact information may have the disadvantage that it may be complicated to send a contact number of a person not available in the contact list or the address book of the sending party. Hence, if a sending party, for example, wishes to send a telephone number or other contact numbers of someone not present in the contact list, this data has to be entered in the text of the SMS/MMS and transmitted to the receiving party. The receiving party, in turn, wishing to contact the person whose contact data appears in the SMS/MMS received will have to activate a number search or number find function on the telephone in order to be able to call the person. Moreover, the receiving party will have to perform a tedious contact data entering procedure for the contact in the SMS/MMS received, where either the name of the contact having the contact number in the SMS/MMS received has to be entered or both the name and the contact number of the contact person have to be entered.